Canada reports 1,040 new coronavirus cases, including 70 more deaths

Over 1,000 new coronavirus cases were reported across Canada on Tuesday, including 70 more deaths.

Tuesday’s numbers, which are tallied by provincial and federal health authorities, brings Canada’s COVID-19 total cases and deaths to 79,101 and 5,912, respectively.

COVID-19-related deaths in Quebec, which saw an increase of 51 on Tuesday, now sit at 3,647, accounting for over 60 per cent of Canada’s total deaths.

New cases recorded in the province were the lowest since April, however, with Premier François Legault cautioning Quebecers to continue their current distancing measures.

Ontario, which announced 427 additional COVID-19 cases, saw the beginning of its reopening plans on Tuesday with a handful of businesses opening their doors following the government imposed shutdown two months prior.

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The plans — which were originally announced last week — would see all construction businesses resume alongside certain medical, household, animal and recreational services.

Premier Doug Ford also announced that the province’s schools would remain closed for the rest of the year, reasoning that returning children to their classrooms wasn’t worth the risk.

Several other provinces also recorded additional cases of the virus on Tuesday.

Alberta announced 33 new cases of COVID-19, but no new deaths. British Columbia, Saskatchewan and Nova Scotia, on the other hand, announced just single-digit increases in coronavirus cases.

B.C., which was first considered Canada’s epicentre of the virus at the onset of the COVID-19 outbreak, recorded just two additional cases on Tuesday — the lowest increase since its spread in early March.

New developments were also made public on the federal level, the most notable being Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s announcement to extend bans on non-essential travel across the Canada-U.S. border by another 30 days.

Trudeau, who made the announcement during his daily COVID-19 response briefing in Ottawa, said that the extension was an “important decision” that would “keep people in both our countries safe.”

Dr. Theresa Tam, Canada’s chief public health officer, also cautioned against preemptively opening the country’s border until its own domestic COVID-19 was well in hand.

“We have to cautiously lift measures within our borders first just to see slowly what actually happens,” Tam said during her COVID-19 briefing on Tuesday afternoon

“We will want to see that cases are still suppressed. We’re still going to manage, detect and clamp down on any new spots that might come up.”

— With files from The Canadian Press and Beatrice Britneff